Monday, May 23, 2011

D&D and Minecraft?

Greetings! Unfortunately, I was not able to play any Oriental Adventures like originally planned, but we should be meeting this Friday. Also for next week, I should have a pleasant surprise for you all lined up, but no promises (it’s a big project).

In the mean time though, I wanted to share an idea that has been roaming around my head for awhile as to how to take games and programs that are not meant for D&D and convert them for D&D use. Primarily I am thinking of Minecraft.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Minecraft, it is a creativity game for the PC that you can build ANYTHING with. From a 1 to 1 scale model of theU.S.S. Enterprise to a working, basic computer, there is little to nothing you can’t do with Minecraft. If you would like a video review, this one by Yahtzee at the Escapist Magazine I think is best [Warning: this video has explicit language].

So with this said, why couldn’t you make a dungeon in Minecraft that your players could go dungeoneering through. Yes this would be a big project for the DM, but if he/she plays Minecraft anyway, then why not? Traps could be set up with Arrows or Dynamite and Pressure Plates among other things. Look up Minecraft on Youtube to get an idea of what it is really capable of and then go from there! Make your own interactive journey through your Minecraft world that is completely of your own creation! You would have to gauge this with the people you are playing with to see if they would enjoy it, but it was just something to consider.

Until next week!

Raz

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Player Tip of the Week

Don’t tell the DM how to do his job. If you’ve ever played more than one campaign, then you know that DMs all have very different styles of how to lead a game. However, it is very annoying for the DM and other players when someone starts telling the DM how to run his/her campaign.

For instance, we had invited a new player to sit in and play as one of our NPCs for a session just so that he could get an idea of how we play and what the “tone” of the room was. Now, our guest had read and memorized the entire DM Guide and Player’s Handbook, to his credit, but whenever something magic related happened he would tell our DM, Zedd, that it was not possible for the magic thing to happen (like an illusionary dragon that spewed fire that felt real if you didn’t make your Will save). This was a little annoying to say the least.

Basically, whether the DM is going exactly by the rules or not, it is the DMs campaign and he can run it however he wants to. It is not the player’s job to tell the DM he’s “doing it wrong” unless it is a mutual conversation and the DM asks for assistance.

Don’t intentionally try and trick your players into doing something they don’t mean to do. While this is possibly a matter of personal taste, I think that if a DM (a.k.a. the god of his/her D&D world) is trying to trick you then what’s the point? You can’t outsmart god because he already knows what’s going to happen. It is for this reason that I don’t believe that a DM should intentionally mislead a player.

For instance, in an older campaign where I was a Bard we were sent to inspect an area with a lot of smoke coming from it. Once we arrived, we found hundreds of bodies strewn around a big hole in the ground that was producing all the smoke. We also knew that there was a group of maybe 100 Orcs coming our way and we needed to defeat them somehow. So, using the bodies to make walls, we built a little channel that basically funneled enemy Orcs into the smoke where we would then throw them into the pit one at a time.

I was going to stand on the other side of the smoke column, and I said to the DM I wanted to play some pleasant music to entice them into the channel. So the DM said “Would you say that you were playing heavenly music?” and I replied “sure” not thinking anything of it. Well, as I played and as we threw Orcs into the pit, the smoke turned black and rumbling sounds could be heard. So we ran. Come to find out later in the campaign that because I played heavenly music as opposed to pleasant music a horde of angry demons spewed from the smoke and destroyed a nearby village…

If this is just your DM style then I guess by all means mess with your players like this. However, it is generally just a jerk move that players will not usually appreciate.